


When the Stars Fall, I Won't Let Go

by AnHeiressofaSOLDIER



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Based on most recent X update, Extended Scene, Gen, Kingdom Hearts Chi, Kingdom Hearts Chi spoilers, Kingdom Hearts Key, Kingdom Hearts Key spoilers, Kingdom Hearts X, Kingdom Hearts X spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:26:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7619845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnHeiressofaSOLDIER/pseuds/AnHeiressofaSOLDIER
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the most recent Kingdom Hearts X update: Skuld is getting tired of seeing her dear friend injured because of the Foretellers all the time, and wants to protect them from now on. Friendship between Skuld, the player character, and Chirithy. KHX spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Stars Fall, I Won't Let Go

Skuld was getting tired of watching her new, dear friend being injured all of the time because of the Foretellers.

First the strong wielder had fought Vulpes—err, Master Ava, if Chirithy's name for that particular apprentice was right—and then the fox girl had had to be fought once again (though that time she had been in disguise), and even now Aced had raised his Keyblade against the child.

Sitting down in a chair at her best friend's house, as they rested, Skuld couldn't help but to sigh and to bury her face into her hands.

How had things managed to get so badly so quickly? There was even a chance that the unconscious person might never wake up now!

If they were to die… Would they somehow become Unchained like Ephemera was, and get to be a Dandelion faster?

It was a thought that really made little sense at all, with absolutely no credence to it, but it was a happier one all the same.

And Skuld very much needed to be uplifted right now.

"Is your human okay?" Skuld whispered, so as not to wake up her companion, when the question and silence ended up being too much for her. "If you're both going to die, Chirithy… please tell me that now."

Chirithy, padding over to Skuld then, gave her a very inquisitive look, and she had absolutely no idea why.

A shooting star was descending outside the window now, Skuld to see, and she had to wonder if that was the reason for Chirithy's reaction.

Falling stars had never seemed to be a good thing to Skuld and maybe Chirithy felt the same exact way:

Maybe it was heralding the end of the world, and Chirithy was just as upset about it as Vulpes and all the Dandelions were.

Jumping up into Skuld's lap, Chirithy instantly shook his head in the negative and gave Skuld the answer she'd been hoping for:

"Kiddo's going to be just fine, Skuld. Trust me. Our friend just needs a little rest, is all. Master Aced certainly didn't pull any punches—err, Keyblade strikes—when he fought this time."

It was really a terrible joke that the Spirit had just tried to make, but Skuld found herself laughing at it all the same. And how very much she needed that.

"Keyblade strikes instead of punches"… maybe it _was_ funny.

Skuld was really starting to like her best friend's Chirithy: he was just so caring and selfless, and seemed to always want to try and make better of a terrible situation.

Skuld missed her own Chirithy—who never went outside with her anymore, as he thought the rising conflicts might make him succumb to the darkness in his own heart—but she couldn't blame him for keeping his distance lately.

"I'm afraid, though," Skuld admitted, surprising even herself as she said it.

Almost wishing to take the words back, the Dandelion shrunk back in the wooden chair some—towards the blue shadows of the room, so Chirithy could see her expression less—but as the Dream Eater was currently sitting on her lap, wherever she went he was right there with her.

And so it had been foolish, then, to even try and sweep her admission under the rug.

It would probably just be best to finish her sentence, then, Skuld thought. She owed this Chirithy for trying to protect her from Master Ira—Ava—anyway, didn't she?

"I'm afraid that since I wasn't able to catch the dear as easily this time, there might be a hemorrhage on-"

"On the kiddo's head, from where you weren't able to cushion it this time?" Chirithy correctly guessed the end of Skuld's question, while he straightened his cape that had been hitting him in his face some. "I wouldn't worry too much, Skuld. Like I said: Lord Aced's attacks do much more damage than the other Foretellers', but at the same time I know the amazing ace that I taught."

At that, Skuld laughed cheerfully.

Good. Her friend deserved all the compliments that were possible. Skuld wanted at least one of her comrades to know just how memorable they were, after all. She'd never gotten the chance to tell Ephemera that.

And now, even though she also was going to the Unchained realm now and again, Skuld still didn't even see him; he was running too many errands for the missing Ava.

Summoning Starlight to her hand, so that she could at least give off the illusion that she was doing _something_ useful, Skuld found that she was about to tell Chirithy that she thought the Dandelions were _all_ suffering from brain hemorrhages (because why else should they lose morale and faith so easily?), but she was interrupted by Chirithy plopping down and heading back over to the window.

Oh? Did Chirithy think that the shorty was going to awaken so, and thus wanted to be the first thing they saw when they woke up? If that was the case, it was certainly cute.

Skuld dismissed her Keyblade, and looked directly Chirithy's way—trying to tell him just with her eyes that she was sorry for ever having doubted him.

And seeming to understand the sentiment that she was trying to get across, Chirithy bowed his head once, bashfully, before starting a new conversation.

"I wonder if they're okay?"

It took Skuld a moment to understand whom Chirithy was talking about: the two Keybladers from warring factions that had started this whole stupid mess to begin with.

Though Skuld harbored no ill-will towards them at all, and found that she really did want them to be okay, she also very much wanted to slap both of them upside the head, for having helped to get Aced all riled up.

Skuld didn't say this, however.

She didn't want Chirithy to worry that darkness was beginning to worry away at her heart when it wasn't, so instead she answered what was expected of her and not what she was feeling in that instance:

"Yeah, they pushed themselves, didn't they?"

"Thank you, Skuld."

That got the brunette's attention, as she jerked her head up. She thought that it was supposed to be her begging for Chirithy's forgiveness, not the other way around.

So to try and show Chirithy that, Skuld shook her head dismissively, in much the way that Chirithy himself just had.

"At any rate, the atmosphere gets worse every day." As it happened, Skuld now understood that that was what the two of them really should've been conversing about right now.

The three of them (and Ephemera) would hopefully be alright, but everyone else?

If things continued to escalate as they had been doing, Skuld could finally see why Lady Ava was so convinced that the eventual clash of wills would end in everyone's death.

It made Skuld sick just to think about it.

"I see little stand-offs everywhere."

"Yeah…" There was a certain color to Chirithy's voice that didn't sit well with Skuld as he'd muttered this. It was very gray sounding (and Skuld refused to think about that in terms of light and darkness), as if he'd pretty much already accepted the outcome for what it was.

How awful it must have been, Skuld realized then, to be bound to Keyblade wielders like this and to have so little free will of your own.

She had to wonder why the Dream Eaters had to be that way at all…

"How are the Masters?" Skuld ventured now, partially hoping that Chirithy would maybe answer the question she really wanted to know: the one about the Master of Masters who had empowered them and was behind everything.

Except that as she uttered this, she found that she really _was_ interested to see what was going on in the Foretellers' head.

Moving a strand of hair out of her face, Skuld thought that maybe if they could find a way to get all five of them to be friends again, the war and lack of trust wouldn't even be necessary.

Perhaps…

"Well, I suppose what happened just now tells us all we need to know…"

"Yeah…" Chirithy sure seemed to like that word a lot, Skuld noticed miserably. "They've already fallen apart. I don't know what happened, but they've all completely changed."

Well, there went all of Skuld's hope right there. She deflated some, and sat so that she was almost falling out of her seat.

It wasn't as though Skuld couldn't understand the Foretellers' issues:

When Ephemera had first told her to meet someone new, through that crazy dream he'd given her, she hadn't known what to make of it.

She hadn't understood if she should trust her now-best-friend, or if Ephemera had perhaps replaced her with this person.

So on an even bigger scale, _shouldn't_ such fears tear everyone apart?

But at the same time… the Masters were supposed to be better than the ordinary wielders, weren't they?

And yet… they weren't behaving that way at all!

"Yes… There really isn't any way to avoid a battle at this point, is there?"

_I'll be fighting, too, but in those missions that Lady Ava instructed us to. So that we and this next world will have some sort of fighting chance._

"Ephemera."

Both Skuld and Chirithy nearly jumped twenty feet in the air, when hearing the inclusion of a third voice into their conversation.

Skuld went wide-eyed, and checked over her friend at once—very much so behaving like a mother hen would have, but by far Chirithy was much worse about it.

"Ah!" Chirithy exclaimed, jumping into the air once again in an excited motion.

Feeling the need to move herself, Skuld hopped down from the chair and looked at the door that led outside, thinking that maybe the good will of the Dandelions, Ephemera, and Master Ava had perhaps all culminated together to achieve this miracle. If that was the case, she was so very grateful for that.

"Oh, great! You're awake."

"Have you been able to see Ephemera?" Skuld's bestie asked, while continuing to lay street and to look up at the ceiling.

Apparently moving too much wasn't on the agenda yet, Skuld realized—her heart going out to her darling companion.

"…Not yet, but apparently he is doing things under the direction of Lady Ava _."_

 _I'd actually been hoping that you'd see him in your dream, so I could know he was okay. And if_ I _saw Ephemera again… Maybe I'd even ask him to come back here to be like Lady Ava for a while, since she's been missing for so long now and everyone around me is losing it because of that._

"I've been trying to persuade as many Keyblade wielders as I can from the final battle. But most people just aren't believing in the end of the world…" Skuld hung her head low at this depressing and far too true thought. "In fact, even the Dandelions are starting to get anxious without Lady Ava around, and morale has started to drop…"

Fortunately, there were a _few_ people in the Dandelions that seemed to think Skuld was a bit like Ava—and so they were following the advice that Vulpes had given them, that Skuld was now repeating for her—but those people were few and far between.

Most of the Dandelions actually seemed to be wary of Skuld now—probably because she was the newest of those chosen to venture to the outside world, and technically hadn't been tested by Ava to join like everybody else had been?

"What's this about Lady Ava?" Skuld's injured friend demanded now, their voice edging ever so slightly in either anger or sadness.

Truthfully, Skuld was glad when this most important of all people had spoken up when they had; she'd been getting far too lost in her own imaginings.

Even Chirithy had seemed to be negatively affected by Skuld's mood, as he grimaced some—and the two of them didn't even know each other that well!

"The truth is, Lady Ava's been missing lately…" Chirithy ended up carrying the torch for Skuld, as he turned away from both of them in some semblance of guilt, it seemed.

Skuld felt awful for the Spirit. It must have been a nightmare to know so much about the Foretellers, but to be forbidden to tell anyone about it.

At least he wasn't alone in carrying that burden anymore, though. Hadn't Skuld herself know things about Master Ava—as Chirithy himself had—that she'd also been reluctant to share?

She and Chirithy were very much the same, weren't they? Skuld understood then.

Perhaps the people who compared her so much to Ava should have seen her with her friend's Chirithy instead. Therein was where a real connection lied.

"But, maybe Lord Gula knows something. The two of them are friends, after all."

The bed creaking as the harmed Starlight bearer sat up was all Skuld could hear for a moment—because she was so scared that if the person jostled their body too much, they'd hurt themselves even further and so she focused on that—until the words, "Let's go ask Lord Gula," almost seemed to appear out of the ether.

The name "Gula" on that particular Lux collector's tongue had sounded foreign, but Skuld knew it would've been much the same for herself.

This was the first time she'd ever heard a Foreteller called that name. She wondered which one of the men it was…

But whoever it was, Skuld was already pleased with him for apparently being sensible—and not forgetting past friendships—and a possible aid to them, that was for sure!

"You have to rest more!" Chirithy urged, jumping onto the bed so violently, that Skuld almost thought he would continue to do so to knock his master back down again and again if he had to.

The non-Dandelion didn't let that deter them, though.

Instead, they were by Skuld's side like that. Skuld almost beamed in thinking what a good team they made together, but she did not.

She couldn't shake the idea that this quest was going to end terribly for her best friend, and that it would be her fault entirely.

"There's no time."

These words—spoken in a resigned, yet loud, tone—filled the entire air around the group.

They almost seemed to be oppressing both her and Chirithy to their will, it seemed, and Skuld found that she was powerless to fight the magic there: maybe even worse than Chirithy was.

"…You're right," she admitted reluctantly, and watched with tears threatening to spill from her eyes, as Chirithy protested—before being cut off with an "I'm fine, Chirithy" and a pat on the head.

"Okay…" Chirithy relented just as begrudgingly as Skuld herself had, and that was the exact reason for what she did next:

She picked Chirithy up into her arms, and whispered something to him that only he would hear. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to do better in being a protector this time. I won't let anything happen to the one you're linked to, I promise. Even if- even if that means _really_ becoming like Ava, and sacrificing myself for you guys, the way that she's preparing to fight in the Keyblade War to give us Dandelions a chance."

Since he had leapt out of her arms, and seemed about to protest this idea with mouth open wide, Skuld could tell that that hadn't done much to reassure Chirithy, either.

But when Skuld darted forward to grab onto her friend's hand as they were going out the door, it did.

Clearly Chirithy could tell that she _wasn't_ suicidal—and wouldn't throw her life away unless she had to, since she had so much to live for with her friends now.

And the three of them exited into the dawning sunlight together, unsure if it would bring them horror or wonderful memories, but knowing that no matter what happened… they'd face any threat together.

And hopefully with a certain flower boy, to boot.

**Author's Note:**

> This might be one of my favorite stories I've ever written, and I'm so glad that I get to give it to you for your birthday, Liz. You more than deserve my best work. Happy birthday, honey. –hugs-
> 
> P.S. Everyone really should write some more X fanfiction, I think! The story's SO good, and it would give us so many new possibilities for KH fanfiction! IDK.
> 
> Oh! And the title of this is inspired by a lyric in Ashes Remain's "Right Here" song=)


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